Lijiang(366 views)

Release date:2009-08-24 14:55:53

At the foot of the Jade Dragon Mountain in northwest Yunnan province, between the provincial bustle of Kunming and the rugged mountains of Tibet, lies Lijiang, a town that many in China will have heard about, or even visited - a haven for artists, scholars, and dreamers alike.

Upon entering Lijiang, despite its truly breathtaking mountain setting, one does wonder what exactly justifies this sleepy little town's rather prodigious reputation. The streets are filled with the usual mix of cut-price clothes shops, whose speakers play the latest (and some not-so-recent) pop hits out into the streets, and small, busy restaurants selling surprisingly tasty dumplings and other snacks.

Only after discovering the old town however, can one really appreciate what makes this place so special.

Lijiang's old town is the home to the 300,000 or so Naxi people, one of China's minority nationalities, and a proud people with their own customs, language and even writing system. Touted as the world's last living pictographs, the Naxi Dongba script (the Dongba are Naxi priests, wise men and exorcists) can be found all across the Old town, on souvenir t-shirts and bells, on shop signs, and even at the local KFC. This fabulously inventive script, still in use today, it part of the region's cultural heritage, and is testament to the startling imagination and history of the Naxi people, as well as being intrinsically linked with the natural beauty of the region.

The old town is a labyrinthine collection of winding, cobbled streets, with many interesting alleyways to explore - this truly is the China of our imaginations, a dreamland of ancient wooden houses, that lights up at night with the dancing and song of Naxi women, and with the luminescence of red lanterns and candles. The streets are dense and tourists so many that you are never far from some friendly conversation or interesting acquaintance, yet the hinterlands of the old town are quiet and offer some space for rest and relaxation.
Foreign tourists are common here, so cafes serving coffee and western food are plentiful, and the cheap guest houses are always friendly and clean.

Aside from walking the streets of the old town, one can spend a day scaling the Jade Dragon Mountain, or exploring the lesser-travelled Naxi villages on the outskirts of the city. You can even try your hand at Naxi paper making, or cloth dying, and the academically minded can have lessons in the dongba script.

Just a short bus journey away from walled old town of Dali to the south and the new Chinese Shangri-la, Diqing, to the north, and with its own airport, Lijiang is as easy to get to as any of china's much larger cities. But the whole atmosphere of the place is so alluring, so enchanting, that once you have arrived, you may well find it hard to leave.

Perhaps Lijiang really is the Shangri-la that James Hilton wrote of in his novel, Lost Horizon - not quite so secret, but immortal in its own right.

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